Exclusive: Three Business Heads quit Mobikwik

Digital payments major and financial service provider MobiKwik is grappling with yet another churn at the top level. According to two Entrackr's sources, three business heads looking after payments gateway, International business, lending, financial services and digital insurance had resigned in the past five weeks.

“Bikram Bir Singh who used to head digital insurance and financial services with Vinayak N, Senior Vice President & Head Digital Lending at Mobikwik, resigned from the Gurugram-based firm,” said sources aware of the development.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Singh was also a Senior Director for a little less than three years. Vinayak served about 21 months at MobiKwik. Payment gateway Business Head and Senior Vice President Sushant Kashyap also resigned from the firm last month.

Kashyap joined MobiKwik in December last year and resigned last month. As per his LinkedIn profile, he joined UpGrad as President strategic alliance this month.

Between April and July last year, MobiKwik had faced a similar situation when Vineet Singh (Chief Business Officer), Puneet Agarwal (Chief Risk Officer) and Daman Singh Soni (Marketing Head) resigned from the Sequoia-backed firm.

Responding to Entrackr’s query, Mobikwik’s co-founder Upasana Taku said that the individuals had done their part in building their business lines and have moved on to new organizations. We have a structured succession planning process, and their departure has been well managed to ensure smooth transitions with farewell celebrations done in each case to acknowledge their individual contribution. We wish them well!

Sources emphasised that the trio moved as they got a better opportunity. Entrackr has also sent queries to Singh and Vinayak. We’re yet to hear from them while Kashyap couldn’t be contacted immediately. We will update the post as and when we hear from them.

With its emphasis on financial products, insurance lending and payment gateway unit, the company is eyeing to break even by next month. MobiKwik is expecting its losses as less as $3 million in the ongoing financial year, mentioned Upasna Taku (MobiKwik CEO) in an interview with BusinessLine.

Currently, about 75% of the revenue is contributed by the wallet and rest from financial services. MobiKwik expects the revenue split 50:50 between both services by 2022. Meanwhile, it claimed operational profitability in the payment gateway business in June this year.

As per media reports, MobiKwik’s payment gateway arm also reported a profit of Rs 70 lakh in June 2019. Of late, the company has been struggling to raise a big round. Last month, it raised Rs 8.74 crore from New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) and Trifecta Capital.

Digital payments space in India has turned hyper-competitive with Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay battling out for a larger market share. Both Paytm and PhonePe have been eyeing to corner billion USD plus rounds. Since MobiKwik is finding it hard to raise a large round, it would be interesting to see how it remains a strong player in the overall ecosystem.